MEHMET BÜYÜKEKŞİ

With The Motto “Designed In Turkey” We Want To Exist In The World And Gain Dominance

We have conducted an interview about Design Week Turkey, Turkey’s Brand in Design, with Mr. Mehmet Büyükekşi, TIM’s President. TIM, carrying out activities to deservedly position the products produced in Turkey in the global markets both in quality and in design requirements as Turkey Exporters Assembly, hosted Finland as Guest Country in Design Week Turkey (DWT) which was organized with the support of our Ministry of Economy. The number of participants in Design Week Turkey (DWT), which has turned into the largest platform of the country in its field in its second year, has increased by 75 percent in one year.

With The Motto “Designed In Turkey” We Want To Exist In The World And Gain Dominance

Design Week Turkey, organized by the Ministry of Economy in cooperation with Turkey Exporters Assembly (TIM), has transformed into the 2dn largest platform of Turkey in the second year. Can we listen Design Week, which has a record-breaking 75% of participants in a year, from you?

As Turkey Exporters Assembly, we will be continually carrying out such intensified activities to increase our global competitiveness in export. Our goal is to make make a perfect sense of the products produced in Turkey in the global markets both in quality and in design requirements and make it more preferred and demanded. Global competition is subjected to certain criterias. These are R & D, innovation, entrepreneurship, design and branding. As TIM, we are organizing activities to raise awareness in all sections of the society by centralizing these 5 precepts as the focus of our work. Design Week Turkey (DWT) is also one of our activities. Through this free event organized by the Ministry of Economy, we are aiming to bring together all segments of masses from business world to the academic world, from leading designers in the world to local designers. Our long-term goal is to reflect the economic value that the Turkish design growingly proves to deserve and to raise an awareness among all segments of society in field of design. By merging design together with the whole industry,we have been organizing our activitities for about two years, that is to launched to contribute to the economy of Turkey.

What Kind of Power Does The sense of “Designed in Turkey” Wield Internationally? Could you please tells us about the importance of Design Week in this context?Listen Design Week, which has a record-breaking 75% of participants in a year, from you?
We certainly wintness that the potential of design in global trade has a lucrative counterpart. Up until now, with our “Made in Turkey” products, we have extrapolated greatly in global markets and we have taken the justified pride of our national products. However, in today’s conditions of global economy and trade, we know that. Turkish products deserves much better rankings and we would like to fullfill the need. We no longer aim to be a subcontractor country that produces for world famous brands but a country that produces a world-renowned brand. At this point, we have an insatiable desire to exist and dominate the world with “Designed in Turkey”. In this context, I believe that Design Week Turkey, as one of the most important platforms for our country, will provide great contributions to the process of obtaining high value-added production.

Design Week opened its doors this year with the theme of “Potential of Design ” . What were the activities that were carried out at Design Week Turkey?
At the 32-day conferences and panel in Design Week Turkey, which lasted five days, 103 famous speakers shared their experiences over industrial, fashion, visual communication and architectural design. 17 exhibitions were arranged in many areas ranging from artisanship to artificial intelligence, from manual labour to digitial. Our participants have experienced the design process in 14 workshops that brought designers from disciplines together on a common platform.

In the event that the universities, especially the design departments, showed great interest, our future designers had the opportunity to perform interactive conversations with experts. We also realized the award ceremony of Design Turkey Industrial Design Competition with the sectoral design competitions, organized by our exporters union in Design Week. In Design Turkey competition organized by the Ministry of Economy, TIM and Industrial Designers Society of Turkey (ETMK), we’ve brought close together Sector’s doyens’ in leading the Turkey’s design.

In line with our targets,what do you think is the Finland’s contribution to the export potential of our country in terms of textile and fashion?
At Design Week Turkey, Finland’s 100-year history and experiences, ranging from industrial design to architecture, from innovation to branding, were shared with the participants at the “Finnish Day” to enrich the content of the activity where Finland was hosted as a guest country. In addition, more than 50 bilateral business negotiations between Finnish design firms and Turkish firms have also evaluated possible business opportunities. We consider Finnish experiences significant to our country, both in terms of design-based production and acceptance of deisng culture in the wider masses. I believe that our textile and fashion sectors, which we regard design as an indispensable part of our production and marketing processes, will be positively affected by this cooperation developing between the two countries.